International design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled the design of a master plan for the Currie Park waterfront of West Palm Beach, Florida, featuring a one-of-a-kind floating plaza that utilizes some of the same technologies employed in the construction of underwater vessels. The project will transform a 19-hectare vacant area on the coast of Lake Worth Lagoon, the narrow sea channel that separates the two cities of West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, creating a major new complex that includes housing, retail, and leisure facilities.

A pair of leafy ramblas will allow people to stroll from the city center of West Palm Beach directly into the middle of the lagoon. Here, Carlo Ratti Associati will build a floating plaza that sits on the water, partly under the sea level, thanks to a system of responsive air chambers similar to the ones used by submarines. The floating peninsula will incorporate a series of public facilities, including an organic restaurant with its own hydroponic cultivations, a circular pool, an auditorium, and a water plaza.

“With this project, we aim to reclaim West Palm Beach’s connection to the natural elements that surround it, and give shape to a vibrant new district that will serve as a creative catalyst for the entire city”, said Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding partner of Carlo Ratti Associati. “The project also showcases how a new technology allows us to radically redefine the relationship between architecture and water.”

The floating plaza, sitting on the safe waters of Lake Worth lagoon, will be built upon a series of air chambers that automatically open and close, releasing or taking in water according to the number of people that are walking on the surface. “Architecture usually conceives of buildings as separate, autonomous entities, but in this case, the plaza inhabits the water as if it was carved right into it”, adds Ratti: “The water becomes a moving element that harmoniously accommodates the new public space”.

Back on the mainland, the master plan will coalesce around a newly expanded Currie park, which will extend out across the city from its current waterfront location via a pair of leafy ramblas. The project will anchor a new, lively part of the city, featuring residential towers, a pool terrace overlooking the sea, and a retail area that will include a food hall dedicated to organic products. The master plan will also reshape the waterfront’s overall terrain. On the north side of Currie park, where a parking lot stands now, a gently sloping hill will be created, allowing pedestrians to access the area and opening up the view towards Palm Beach’s narrow stretch of land and the ocean just beyond it.

“The Currie park master plan will bring new life to West Palm Beach and serve as a world-class attraction that draws tourists to our city”, says project investor Jeff Greene. “This also builds on the success of our collaboration with Carlo Ratti Associati on West Palm Beach’s new Greene School.”

“For too long, this part of West Palm Beach had its back to the water. Finally our city is about to enjoy a fantastic new public space for all of our citizens – one that will reconnect West Palm Beach with Palm Beach and open up the city to its surrounding natural elements”, says Jon Ward, Executive Director of the City of West Palm Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

The project of the Currie Park master plan draws on Carlo Ratti Associati’s long-time research on innovative uses of water in architecture. In 2008, the office designed the Digital Water Pavilion at the Expo Zaragoza, a building with retractable walls made of water that gained international recognition and was named by TIME magazine as one of its “Best Inventions of the year”. The master plan for West Palm Beach was unveiled on October 31th, 2016. Construction will break ground next month and will be completed by 2018, allowing people to seamlessly live in their city – on the ground and over the water.

ABOUT CARLO RATTI ASSOCIATI

Carlo Ratti Associati is a design and innovation office based in Turin, Italy, with branches in Boston and London. Drawing on Carlo Ratti’s research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the office is currently involved in many projects across the globe. Embracing every scale of intervention – from city master plans to furniture design – the work of the practice focuses on innovation in our built environment and daily lives. Noteworthy achievements at the urban and architectural scale include the masterplan for a creative-hub in the City of Guadalajara, the Future Food District at Expo Milano 2015, and the Digital Water Pavilion at Expo Zaragoza – named among the “Best Inventions of the Year” by Time Magazine. Product design projects range from experimental furniture for Cassina, to light installations for Artemide, to responsive seating systems with Vitra. Since 2014, Carlo Ratti Associati has been involved in the launch of two startups: Superpedestrian, producer of the Copenhagen Wheel, and Makr Shakr, developer of the world’s first robotic bar system.

Rogers Partners was chosen by the Buckhead Community Improvement District to deliver a detailed plan and concept design for an innovative park over the GA400 freeway and the MARTA regional light rail platform and tracks. Our design for the park will make strategic connections over GA400 and MARTA to enhance the life of the district, tailored to the specific qualities of the site and authentic to the Atlanta region.

Buckhead Park over GA400 recognizes an opportunity to occupy the gap created by the GA400 freeway with a dense cover of native trees that link adjacent canopies. The undulating Piedmont topography, direct transit access, and potential cultural opportunities present a rich landscape into which we weave this new signature public space. Enveloping plantings derived from native Piedmont plant communities tell the natural story of the region while providing ecological function by reducing the heat island effect, capturing stormwater, and supporting native flora and fauna that are co-adapted to each other and the Atlanta climate. We are working with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects to create the front yard and center of the Buckhead District.

The 2,500-foot-long public space over the highway will provide ample capacity for a mix of distinct spatial experiences including the shaded grove of the Commons for picnics and casual gatherings, a grand Plaza with vibrant edges and a large public display at the train stop, lush and intimate Gardens for immersive nature and art walks, and more. Spanning the length of the park, an Allée of high-canopied pines provides a defining structural element to the sequence of spaces. With dappled shade and majestic trunks, the Allée moves through the distinct zones with a linearity that contrasts with the sweeping curves of the ground plane.

This project extends deep into the district and will improve walkability and access to the MARTA commuter rail station. Activated pedestrian paths seamlessly connect the neighboring streets and the park, encouraging foot traffic into and across the park throughout the day. The park also becomes a prime destination on Path 400, a regional recreational and commuter bike path and running trail that will be integrated along the length of the park with improved connections at either end to regional destinations beyond. A bike share station is included at the central pavilion in the Plaza, at the entrance to the MARTA station. The park is envisioned as a model for the multimodal future of Atlanta.

This project on behalf of the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) included Concept Planning through Construction Administration for the Rocket Park Mini Golf course. The project features an interactive outdoor miniature golf experience themed on rocket science physics. The nine-hole miniature golf course with interactive components illustrates various concepts of rocket science physics, from Blast Off to Splash Down. Concepts are further explained through interpretive graphics.

The client envisioned this unique educational environment as an excellent vehicle to demonstrate classic Newtonian physics – a key component in rocketry and all physical science education, from elementary school through Ph.D. level science – to kids. LHSA+DP worked with a miniature golf course designer in the early months of the project to establish the overall planning and layout of the course. The design team studied recommended relationships between holes, traffic flow and pacing of visitors to optimize the experience on a restricted quarter-acre site. Each hole can function independently to allow visitors to move at their own pace through the course and, unlike most regular miniature golf courses, the holes do not need to be experienced in any particular order. The nine holes are arranged, however, according to the sequential stages of a rocket’s journey. Hole #1 is “Launch Window” and Hole #9 is “Splash Down!”. In between, the other seven holes include: “Blast Off!”, “Zero Gravity”, “Orbit the Earth”, “Space Docking”, “Space Junk”, “Gravity Whip”, and “Re-Entry”. Tying this course together is a large central plaza area representing a lunar surface, complete with a replica Mercury space capsule, that serves as a practice putting “green” (seamless, poured in place EPDM surfacing comprised of 100% recycled tires). This space is designed with bench seating and attractive landscaping in order to control crowding on busy days and offer a vantage point from which caregivers can keep an eye on their children as they move through the Rocket Park. And the cushioned rubbery surface gives players a bit of “moon bounce” as they navigate the course.

The look and feel of the project is inspired by the popular culture of the late 1950s/early1960s. Space Age iconography, toy robots, futuristic roadside architecture and imagery from the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, all drove the highly colorful and stylized design elements of the project. Custom illustrations were commissioned by LHSA+DP to explain the various physics concepts being engaged at each hole.

Not since Alan Shepard drove a golf ball on the moon in 1971 has there been this much enthusiasm for the sport in an extraterrestrial context. At Rocket Park Mini-Golf, the colorful hardscape design, varied challenges of the golf holes, retro-style informational graphics and landscaping come together to form an out-of-this-world rocket ship journey through space for all ages.

Viger Square is about to reclaim its past glory thanks to a complete redesign and redevelopment led by the landscape architects at NIPPAYSAGE.

Work will begin on the first phase, affecting the square’s two western blocks – part of Montreal’s 375thanniversary legacy – in the spring of 2017. The two eastern blocks will be the focus of the next phase, completing the revitalization of Montreal’s very first square outside the old town’s fortifications.

Viger Square, bounded by Guy-Frégault St. to the west, Saint-André St. to the east, Viger Ave. to the north and Saint-Antoine St. to the south, was the first large public square created in Montreal. In the 19thcentury, it had the distinction of being the largest public square in Canada. Viger Square was a prestigious, lively and much-loved space designed in the finest tradition of public gardens.

The northward shift of elite francophone residential areas in the 1920s marked the beginning of the area’s gradual abandonment and decline, which accelerated after the crash of 1929. Between 1963 and 1984, the construction of the metro tunnel and the Ville-Marie Expressway tunnel under Viger Square led to the square’s demolition and reconstruction. Despite the participation of three prominent artists from the Quebec and Canadian modernist movement – Charles Daudelin, Claude Théberge and Peter Gnass – the square never reclaimed a level of urban utility appropriate for this large public space located just outside Old Montreal.

“The square’s previous design and development reflected the planning ideologies of the time, including highway-like roadways surrounding the square, the separation of the blocks with concrete walls, a large number of compartmentalized spaces, a lack of openness, light and natural sightlines, and a shortage of programming and other efforts to encourage people to use the space. All of these factors inevitably contributed to the abandonment and eventual occupation of the square by a marginalized population,” said Michel Langevin, landscape architect and partner at NIPPAYSAGE.

Urban and architectural context

Viger Square remains a major urban feature, distinguished by the presence of civic and residential buildings, of which several are very prestigious homes designed by acclaimed architects. The north side of the square faces the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, formerly the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, while the south side faces the former Viger hotel and station, built in 1898 by Bruce Price, the architect who designed the Château Frontenac in Quebec City.

The revitalization of the area will make a strong contribution to the re-adoption of the square, thanks in large part to the future redevelopment of the Viger hotel and station with new retail and office spaces, and the imminent opening of the new Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM).

“Our mandate is to give the expected diverse new group of users a refreshed and creative concept that respects the built heritage and the mark left by the artists in the 1980s,” Mr. Langevin added.

The integrated vision for the future Viger Square is built around several elements: user-friendliness, aimed at creating a harmonious environment that mitigates the nuisances that led to the square’s decline; inclusiveness and a commitment to creating a space for all users, with flexible programming to encourage a wide range of uses; anchoring in the surrounding area in order to ensure that the space is perfectly integrated with the urban fabric; and, lastly, a commemorative element to restore the space’s iconic character.

Following consultation, coordination and mobilization efforts involving numerous stakeholders, the design principles established by the NIPPAYSAGE team, in conjunction with the professionals at the Ville de Montréal’s Service des grands parcs, du verdissement et du Mont-Royal, are varied: a unique, iconic form for the entire square, physical and visual openness, concentration of activities on a longitudinal axis, generous vegetation optimized for the constraints imposed by the underground expressway, showcasing of built and artistic heritage, reduction of vehicle space in favour of pedestrian accessibility, and environmentally sound runoff management.

The revitalization of Viger Square also created an opportunity to make fundamental changes to the layout of adjacent streets for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists. Available parking will be reduced on perpendicular streets and the optimized, but still functional, reduction of east-west lanes will enable safe access to Viger Square and reduce the highway-like character of the streets.

A hybrid landscape

In order to attract a highly diverse user base, Viger Square will have a hybrid landscape incorporating several landscape concepts: square, public space, park, garden, and public art.

Varied event programming and service areas such as a café with patio, public washrooms and a space for promoting cycling in collaboration with BIXI Montréal, adjacent to the existing bicycle path on Berri Street, will allow the square’s users to enjoy it to the fullest, in a setting enhanced by additional trees and greenery. Concerts, festivals and all kinds of activities will be able to use Viger Square as a venue.

The café and patio, located in Daudelin block and designed by Provencher_Roy architects, will bring liveliness to the square, in harmony with the landscape and public artworks. “The pavilion is a fused volume comprising three glass and steel cubes, which stand out and integrate with an existing composition by artist Charles Daudelin, through an interplay of transparencies and a distinctive, sharp outline,” said Claude Provencher, architect and partner at Provencher_Roy.

Users of all ages will enjoy the interactive fountain, ping-pong tables, exercise equipment, a skate park, a multi-sports field and a pétanque pitch. There are numerous possibilities for winter, including skating rinks, a Christmas market, a tobogganing hill, a heated patio and festive lighting.

The underground expressway led the landscape architects to draw an east-west axis to serve as a public space, walkway and connector for the four blocks. The grand urban scale is defined by the alignment of oversized benches and lighting standards, by careful positioning of the artworks and by free, indirect and random movement patterns.

The landscaped axis will be punctuated by a series of playful, surprising objects: surfaces and temporary furnishings with an iconic character, and gardens featuring an offbeat mix of unexpected, sculptural vegetation. The areas designated for experimentation with vegetation will also contribute to the space’s unique character.

The majority of green surfaces, covering half the square’s total area, will be located on either side of the axis. This will allow them to use areas unburdened by underground constraints, where the soil is deep enough for optimal growing of several species of broad-canopied trees and the implementation of environmentally sound runoff management, designed in consultation with the engineering firm Consultants S.M. inc.

Highlighting public art

A major effort to highlight public art is at the core of the Viger Square project.

In Chénier block, the work by German-American sculptor Alphonso Pelzer, created in 1895 in memory of Jean-Olivier Chénier, a doctor and Patriote who died in 1837 at the battle of Saint-Eustache, will be restored and relocated to the centre of the block.

In Daudelin block, the proposal is focused on the Agora, including the sculptural fountain called Mastodo, by Charles Daudelin. The partial return to service of Mastodo, in a fixed position, as well as its relocation to a setting built around water features, will help, as the artist wished, bring life to the space. It will arouse users’ curiosity by conveying a concept of time that invites them to partake of an enigmatic experience built around waiting and surprise.

Of the 22 existing concrete pergolas, an important topic of discussion among the stakeholders, 18 will be preserved, minus their roofs. The preservation of the pergolas, which are also by Charles Daudelin, will help open the space while preserving the work’s artistic integrity. This reasonable balance will give the restored pergolas new life, integrated into a setting in which greening, sustainability and safety are primary concerns.

Forces by Claude Théberge, a concrete sculptural fountain located in Théberge block, will be restored in its current location, updated to rectify construction flaws, and highlighted with new lighting. Lastly, Fontaine by Peter Gnass, located in Gnass block, will be replaced by a contemporary reinterpretation of the original work.

Lighting

The intent of the lighting concept, designed by Lightemotion, is to highlight the square’s various built elements while respecting the space’s vegetation. The lighting also clearly serves to improve safety, but it is also at times dramatic, vibrant or animated.

“As in a theatre, the lighting apparatus is not decorative. To the contrary, the use of multiple projectors mounted on long, discreet standards on the main axis is intended to make the light sources disappear, allowing a certain degree of flexibility in illumination. The goal of lighting on the main axis is to highlight the various elements,” explains François Roupinian, president and design director of Lightemotion.

The integrated vision conceived by NIPPAYSAGE and its collaborators proposes to enhance Viger Square through a welcoming and inclusive redesign, grounded in the square’s rich history and built, artistic and landscape heritage.

NIPPAYSAGE was founded in 2001 by five partners, all graduates of the landscape architecture school at the Université de Montréal who had also trained at prestigious firms in the United States. NIPPAYSAGE quickly established a reputation for an original approach, and participated in competitions and completed numerous projects in a wide variety of settings. Having developed significant expertise as a project lead, the firm added increasingly ambitious projects to its portfolio. Its profile received a boost in 2012 when it won a Canada-wide competition for the design of Promenade Smith in Montreal. NIPPAYSAGE and its now 13-strong team have since been chosen to lead major projects on the CHUM and CHUSJ campus, Place Joseph-Venne, the new passenger terminal in the Port of Montreal, the quadrangle on the Université de Montréal’s Outremont campus, and the ambitious Viger Square redevelopment.

The one-of-a-kind Ark Encounter project, said to be the largest timber-framed structure in the world, has been completed in Williamstown, KY (40 miles south of Cincinnati, OH).

A family-oriented, historically authentic, and environmentally friendly themed attraction, the Ark Encounter is a to-scale replica of the Biblical Noah’s Ark, which market studies suggest will see 1.2 – 2 million visitors annually. Phase one of the Ark Encounter also has a 1,500 seat restaurant, zip line courses, and a petting zoo. The project began nearly 7 years ago with the planning and permitting process, now the Ark Encounter officially opened on July 7th, 2016.

The Noah’s Ark story is about a man with great faith who built a large ship to hold his family and 2 of every living animal species to spare them from a catastrophic flood. Today, the life-sized reconstruction is truly a design feat unlike any other structure and is a park for all to visit.

We are a team of problem solving and forward thinking Engineers, Designers, Planners & Builders that believe our work comes down to people and their experiences. From large destinations to small renovations; From healing environments to environmental stewardship; From transportation projects to active recreation; Troyer Group seeks to make a positive economic, environmental, and social impact. It is this broad expertise that has enabled us to help make our clients more successful for nearly half a century.

According to an ambitious plan, the Jinshan Modern Agricultural Park, located on the southwestern outskirts of Shanghai, is being transformed into a suburban park with composite functions. Enhancement of the public space in the core area of the park is the pilot project for initiating this transformation. In the conception of design, the veranda, an essential element in traditional Chinese gardening, has been selected as the theme of the design. In the park, a veranda extending in the east–west direction links up several isolated agricultural tourism projects on the north side of the freeway. This veranda will be expanded farther westward and will pass through the eastern landscape mound to be integrated with other tourism projects towards the south via a pedestrian bridge. The landscape mound on the south side of the veranda will isolate the park from the noise and sight of the freeway, and the freeway-facing side of the park, together with the veranda, will form an extended earthscape, thereby ensuring high identifiability along the freeway line.

Replacing the expensive and complex wooden structure of a traditional veranda, a simple, white concrete structure will not only harmonise the agricultural environment and the surrounding modern facilities but will also effectively ensure that the project costs less than 80 euros/square metre, in accordance with the financial restrictions of the project. The overall folded planar structrue provides sufficient activity space in various eastern and western areas of the project. In particular, the courtyard enclosed by the central veranda and the sightseeing pavilions has become a rest stop for the visitors and a centre for tourist activity in the core area. Combined with the landscapes in various areas, the alternative guiding openings on the walls at each side of the veranda allow the scenery to change with each step. Similar to the traditional high-platform architecture, the bottom platform endows the veranda and surroundings with subtle height changes and powerful styling characteristics.

In the heights of Nice, the neighbourhood of the former Ray Stadium is transforming in order to accommodate some three hundred buildings and 6 000 m2 of commercial surface area, between the Gorbella Boulevard and the future Ray Park. In this densely populated neighbourhood, our project suggests offering the city a new green lung.

Inspired by the topography of the Niçois landscape, whose white stone echoes the stone foundations of the villas perched in the midst of dense vegetation, it recreates the form of a green hill, where vegetation is combined with stone and wood.

It thus constitutes a bridge between the urban and the natural – on the one side, there are the constructions of Boulevard Gorbella, on the other, the vegetation of the park.

It will stretch over all of the buildings of our neighbourhood, covering the façades and roofs. The façades will host climbing, flowering plants, chosen for their resistance and fragrances. The rooftops will be entirely planted, in the spirit of the Niçois landscape, where a green crest dominates constructions.

A construction in the interior of the city block will be raised and placed on pilotis, in order to broaden and extend the presence of nature. Underneath this garden object, the spaces that have thus been freed up will be accessible and open to the public, for new domestic and leisure activities.

On the Boulevard Gorbella side, our project presents a truly urban face. The new constructions will be on a similar scale to those of the neighbouring Niçois buildings, which they will bear some resemblance to. The city block will thus appear to have been constructed over time, for the smoothest of integrations and optimal continuity.

In some buildings, the residents will be able to appropriate sections of the balconies with light constructions, such as in unfinished wood, which will allow the buildings in the block to be broken down, lending them a more individualised interpretation of scale that is closer to their use.

Other, smaller elements will introduce shifts in scale: slipped into the city block, they will be sold as bare “lofts” of double height, ready to furnish – a new housing proposal for new populations with new habits. They are like small elements demonstrating a “desire to reside” that brighten up the façades.

The memory of the Ray Stadium, a federating theme for the residents of Nice, will be conserved. Great sporting figures and the striking events of its history could be the subject of artists’ interventions – images, sculptures or installations.

The project springs from the need to create a welcoming place for the citizens of Favara while simultaneously donating to the city an innovative public space shaped from the perfect combination of wood and vegetation.

The horizontal level is intended as an aggregation of wooden elements made of phenolic plywood and knots of Okoumè, and is designed to assume different configurations thanks to the modularity and flexibility of its geometry.

The vertical level, on the other hand, is composed of six fourteen-sided red prisms, designated Super Pods, made up of a luminous body and a loudspeaker. These three-dimensional elements, created as a tribute to “Pfff” (the inflatable pavilion made by Citivision and Farm Cultural Park), are now used with the aim of “contaminating” the city’s outskirts through art and architecture.

Thanks to its interactive character, Zighizaghi transforms its external space into a dynamic environment where music acts as a vehicle between nature and visitors.

Social technologies, architecture, and vegetation turn Zighizaghi into an intimate and regenerative setting that is equipped with an automatic irrigation system and Mediterranean plants specifically selected to fit with the environmental context.

The project site is located inside the green area called Rhike Park, in Tbilisi, Georgia. The building consists of two different soft shaped elements that are connected as a unique body at the retaining wall. Every elements has his own function: The Musical Theatre and the Exhibition Hall. The north part of the building contains the Musical Theatre Hall (566 seats), the foyer and several facilities, together with technical spaces for theatre machinery and various storages. The Exhibition Hall opens his great entrance with a ramp that brings visitors from the street level. The Music Theatre Hall, on the contrary, soars from the ground and allows the users staying in the foyer and in the cafeteria to have a view to the river and the skyline of the city. It is a periscope to the city and looks towards the river framing the historic core of the Old Tbilisi.

Studio Fuksas, led by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, is one of the most outstanding international architectural firm in the world.

Over the past 40 years the company has developed an innovative approach through a strikingly wide variety of projects, ranging from urban interventions to airports, from museums to cultural centers and spaces for music, from convention centers to offices, from interiors to design collections.

With headquarters in Rome, Paris and Shenzhen, and a staff of 170 professionals, the practice has completed more than 600 projects and has worked in Europe, Africa, America, Asia and Australia, receiving numerous international awards.

Massimiliano Fuksas of Lithuanian descent, was born in Rome in 1944. He graduated in Architecture from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1969. Since the Eighties he has been one of the main protagonists of the contemporary architectural scene.

From 1994 to 1997 he was a member of the Planning Commissions in Berlin and Salzburg. In 1998 he was awarded for his professional career with “Vitruvio International a la Trayectoria” in Buenos Aires. From 1998 to 2000 he directed the “VII Mostra Internazionale di Architettura di Venezia”, Less Aesthetics, More Ethics. In 1999 he received the Grand Prix National d’Architecture Française, the following year he was named National Academic of San Luca and was decorated Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. In 2002 the Honorary Fellowship of the AIA – American Institute of Architects , Washington D.C. Three years later member of the Académie d’Architecture in Paris. In 2006 the Honorary Fellowship of the RIBA – Royal Institute of British Architects, London UK and was named Cavaliere di Gran Croce della Repubblica Italiana. In 2010 he was decorated with Légion d’Honneur by the French President. In 2012 the Medal of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in Italy, and the Global Lithuanian Award, Art and Culture category in Vilnius, Lithuania. The following year the Idea-Tops Awards, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport-T3, awarded Best Transportation Space in Shenzhen, China. In 2014 Architizer A + Award and Architizer A + Pop­­ular Choice Award, Transportation-Airports category in New York. From 2000 to 2015 he was author of the architecture column – founded by Bruno Zevi – in the Italian news magazine “L’Espresso” and from 2014 to 2015 he was, with his wife, the author of the Design column in the Italian newspaper “La Repubblica”.

He has been Visiting Professor at a number of Universities such as Columbia University in New York, the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien, the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart.

Long since he is dedicating special attention to the study of urban problems in large metropolitan areas.

Doriana Mandrelli Fuksas was born in Rome where she graduated in History of Modern and Contemporary Architecture at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1979. She has also earned a degree in Architecture from ESA, École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris. She has done didactic activities at the Institute of History of Art at the Faculty of Letters and Arts and at Industrial Design Department ITACA at “La Sapienza” University in Rome. She has curated four “Special Projects” at the “VII Mostra Internazionale di Architettura di Venezia”, Less Aesthetics, More Ethics in 2000: Jean Prouvè, Jean Maneval, the Peace Pavilion and Architecture of Spaces, and the Contemporary Art section. She has worked with Massimiliano Fuksas in 1985 and has been director in charge of “Fuksas Design” since 1997. In 2002 she was decorated Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. In 2006 Awards for Excellence Europe” ULI (Urban Land Institute), first prize awarded to New Trade Fair, Rho-Pero in Milan, Italy, Washington D. C. In 2012 Wallpaper* Design Awards 2012, EUR New Congress Centre, Rome, Italy awarded Best Building Site, London, UK. In 2013 she was decorated Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. The same year the Idea-Tops Awards, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport-T3, awarded Best Transportation Space in Shenzhen, China and Designer Kitchen & Bathroom Awards 2013, Impronta wash-basin for Catalano awarded Gold Winner in the Innovation in Design, London.

From 2014 to 2015 she was, with Massimiliano Fuksas, the author of the Design column in the Italian newspaper “La Repubblica”.

Let’s Run Yeungcheon is a nature friendly theme park for Human and Horse as an expression of new identity of Horse park in Korea. Our intention on its purposeful driven Park is to create a unique development to attract people from the town in local, other cities and even overseas by its sustainable design. Hence, we present the elevated platform to preserve nature, as well as intend the total paradigm shift from horse race culture in Korean, “horse race is a gamble”, into a new trend of horse race game in direct connection with theme park.

The existing site has its various height differences on each mountain from 25m to 45m, as their differences make the site very much unique as they are. Placing the horse track on its mountainous site, the track smoothly landed on the site by creating higher level to approach to the site from the parking area as naturally elevated land so as to be a unique identity of Let’s Run horse park which is a unique to its only location in Yeoungchen.

Besides its structural form of the park, we aim the shift of paradigm by introduction of the Elf Land which is a new story of Horse Park Yeoungchen. We intend iconic landmark castle that will consist of 6 different tribes who are appeared mainly in the Lord of the Ring, one of famous fantasy movies. Its story is about horse race game to be held by one of tribes, the Elf who invites 5 other tribes for the horse race game in her land. In this form, private gamble sports of horse racing will become family oriented game. From the entry of the theme park to utilization of each functions on the site is related function to visitors’ benefits on uses of facilities in the theme park.